EDUC - 6162-6: EFFECTIVE PROGRAMS AND PRACTICES - FINAL BLOG ASSIGNMENT

Even though I have hosted many international exchange students, been a regional manager for international exchange students, and currently still am an area representative for international exchange students in my little corner of the world, this course was still full of information I feel can only be obtained from a collaborative learning community in which we are currently involved in.  Each individual has contributed in some way to the learning process these last eight weeks and I would like to thank everyone for all their advice, suggestions, and solutions that they shared.

The privilege I had by being welcomed into the professional lives of two international contacts this past eight weeks has definitely opened my eyes to further understanding about the early childhood field of education outside of the US.

Consequences of learning about the international early childhood field (both for professional and personal development) are, but not limited to:

- Strengthening my knowledge and practice in regards to culturally responsive and individually appropriate practice. 

- A greater respect that each students and their family have a culture that is to be valued and affirmed; allow students and families to fully participate in the educational process by keeping communication open in both directions.

- Was given an opportunity to reflect on my own definition of diversity and educate myself in any areas in which I needed more information.  As well as continuing to periodically reflect.

- Broadening my network of peers in the early childhood field.

One of the goals I have set for myself is to grow my own program, as well as become more involved in the community, in order to advocate for other high quality early childhood education programs, childcares, etc…  In an ideal world, it would be easy to have a classroom which can meet the needs of the increasingly changing demographics in the classroom.  Until then, the best teaching practices are those that consider all learners in a classroom setting which pays close attention to the differences inherent to academic, cultural, linguistic, and socioeconomic diversity (Santamaria, 2009).

Once again, thank you to all my classmates, Dr. Longo and my new international contacts for all their help, advice, and suggestions this past eight weeks. I look forward to continuing our collaborative learning community in the future. The best of luck to everyone in their future endeavors!

Reference

Santamaria, L. J. (2009). Culturally Responsive Differentiated Instruction: Narrowing Gaps between Best Pedagogical Practices Benefiting All Learners. Teachers College Record, 111(1), 214-247.

GETTING TO KNOW YOUR INTERNATIONAL CONTACTS CON'T

First I wanted to share some good news I received in my email today.  The announcement read:

“BOSTON - Friday, December 16, 2011:  The Patrick-Murray Administration today announced that Massachusetts is one of nine grant award winners in President Obama's Early Learning Challenge (ELC) competition and will receive significant funding over the next four years to expand high quality early education services and close achievement gaps in education.

Massachusetts is eligible for $50 million under the ELC and the U.S. Department of Education will announce final grant amounts to each winner in the coming days. Other winners of the ELC competition include California, Delaware, Maryland, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio, Rhode Island and the state of Washington. 

Today’s announcement demonstrates our place as a national leader in education reform and achievement, said Governor Deval Patrick.  These resources will help us reach kids at an early age, before achievement gaps form, to ensure they are prepared for lifelong success in school and beyond.””

It was really nice to see some positive news about funding for a change.   

Now for this week’s assigned posting. . . . . .

In the last seven weeks of correspondence with Siddig from Pakistan, I have discovered a person with a lot of the same goals as myself.  He is currently a social worker, but his master degree is in Economics since his parents did not feel that a career in social work was worthy of a good future.  He went ahead and did as they wished but his heart has stayed with the children who are in need of his assistance. 

His future goal is to do what he can for the children of his country.  He is very interested in the psychological aspects pertaining to children and their early learning as well.  During our correspondence he has stated that Pakistan will be the best place for my true cause of helping children as the situation there with the government run schools is not very positive.  The more I look into the link understand (as previously posted - www.cfr.org) he suggested to me, the more I really understand how great his challenge is going to be.  I look forward to keeping our communication open for many years to come.

EXPLORING OUR WEB RESOURCES

For this posting I decided to look even further into the website for Early Childhood Australia:  The Australian Early Childhood Advocacy Organization (http://www.earlychildhoodaustralia.org.au/) that I had previously posted as one of my new resources.  The link I chose to investigate further was the QIAS/QA support link.  This link allows you to choose further information on family day care, long day care, or outside school hours care.  Since I am in the family child care business, I chose to delve further into the family day care link.  I find it to be really interesting to find out what standards different countries have in common and which ones sound like great ideas to implement in our own country.

For this website I compared the Quality Assurance (QA) systems which are an initiative of the Australian Government whose aim is to ensure that children in care have stimulating, positive experiences and interactions.  I liken this system to the QRIS system I am currently working with in my own state.

The link gives other links such as:  www.ncac.gov.au – This is for the National Childcare Accreditation Council who is responsible for the implementation and administration of the Quality Assurance (QA) systems for family day care, outside school hours care and long day care across Australia.  I could be mistaken but I compare this agency to NAEYC (naeyc.org). (Another organization I spend a lot of time using as a major resource for my studies.)

There is also a free copy of Early Childhood Australia’s latest book catalogue, which contains quality-assured early childhood books.  Books on this list must meet the following criteria:  is in the best interests of children; is evidence-based; is appropriately inclusive; uses accessible language; addresses the appropriate age range; is dated and authored; is referenced where appropriate; is attractively designed and presented; and clearly acknowledges any commercial interests and/or biases.  The list of titles is extensive and I found a lot of interesting titles on specific issues that I have never seen before in print.  I would highly recommend viewing this list if anyone likes to read extensively about issues, including, but not limited to understanding excellence and equity in early childhood care.  Some of the titles are a bit pricey but I hope to be able to find the titles I would like to read here in the United States.

The more I follow links and view this website, the more information I find that is so helpful for my resource file.  I highly recommend spending some time looking around this website if this type of content is of interest to any educators and/or parents.

Reference

August 2011 Catalogue Page 1 - Early Childhood Australia Catalogue. (n.d.). Home - Early Childhood Australia. Retrieved December 09, 2011, from http://www.earlychildhoodaustralia.org.au/shop/results.cfm?category=33

GETTING TO KNOW MY INTERNATIONAL CONTACTS

First I need to once again thank Siddig Barech from Pakistan for keeping the line of communication open with me during these last weeks.  I gain so much information about global issues/trends from our conversations.  Beside email we have chatted quite a few times on Facebook about many issues/trends.

When I first brought the topic of the issues of equity/inequity in the early childhood field he did not quite understand my views but was willing to allow me to explain and I in turn allowed him to explain what his thoughts are.  As educators we are aware that there is a definite global inequity but it really brings it home when you actually are corresponding with an individual who lives these inequities.  During our conversation Siddig told me that he wished I could visit Pakistan for a week and see for myself what the government schools are like.  He further explained that it might change my views on a child-centered curriculum as he sees the need for a system of strict standards with no give.

He said that such ideas, such as what I expressed, might never be known in Pakistan for those who are not considered in an elite group with wealth.  He stated that about 99% of their teachers or about 1% of the schools are run by any International standards.  He went on to state that their curriculum is about 64 years old and is practiced in most of the disciplines.  He also said that the arts and history varies a lot but is still practiced.  Our conversation brought to light how easy it is to misconstrue what one person is saying.  In this instance one of his concerns was that I saw no value in history or the arts.  It was nice to talk it out and end up on the same page so to speak.

I also asked if Siddig knew of any websites that I could go on to find out further information about the Pakistan government schools.  He told me that I could search on Google under educational system of Pakistan.  Of course being the type of person who loves to research, I did just that.  The website I chose to further research was http://www.cfr.org.  This was a real eye opener for me.  If anyone is interested in viewing this website for further information, I would highly recommend it even though the information was from 2009; I feel it is still relevant.

Reference

Pakistan's education system and links to extremism. (2009). Council on Foreign Relations. Retrieved from http://www.cfr.org/pakistan/pakistans-education-system-links-extremism/p20364